Posted 12:20 AM by Gobbler
Is That Caaaards? - Mike the Georgian Card Fiend

I believe I may have mentioned that my time here is rapidly coming to a close. Already I have said a final farewell to two of my classes, a rather haphazard affair. One of my students said "Goodbye teacher, see you next semester" to which I responded "Goodbye, but you know I wont be here next term." to which she said "Oh. Bye-bye." She knew quite well that I was not coming back the next semester as I had said t clearly many times. The same thing happened to Rubrick. It seems it is a classic Chinese tactic, saying 'see you next semester' even though they know they wont, it saves any uncomfortable goodbyes. Not that the goodbyes would have been real tear jerkers or anything of that sort, but nevertheless it is an easier thing to say 'see you next semester' than goodbye. So that was that.

Predictably, now that I am about to leave, I am beginning to strike up friendships with some of my students, to the extent that a part of me has said to the rest of me that perhaps I should be staying after all and that I have not had enough time here. But then, Im not going to stay forever and so it may be just as well that Im leaving now, as it will only get harder to leave. And, after all, it would never be possible to blend in and be at home here as it would be in Europe or elsewhere, even if I mastered the language entirely. I will always be a lao wai (foreigner), people will always look my way and pronounce interestedly to their friends "Hah, Lao Wei!" and I will always be taller and whiter and have more than most of them even dream of having (despite living in the City of Dreams) and we will never be able to look at the world in the same way because our upbringings are alien to each other. But a friendship is a friendship after all and despite insoluble differences, and sometimes even because of them, they are never easy to leave behind. Anyway.

Whats the plan over the next few weeks? Well, good question. I finish my last class next wednesday and plan to head off that evening for Xi'an to do some quality Terracotta Warrior action and possibly also a bit of Great Wall naughty. from there its off to Urumqi and then to Kashgar, right in the North West of China.

Why Kashgar? you may ask. 2 things initially attracted me to Kashgar. 1) its a very long way away and 2) its got an outstandingly marvellous name, as appropriate for a Tolkienesque fortress as for a remote town on the old Silk Road. Plus its very famous for its Sunday carpet market. Carpet, anyone?

Then its off to Tibet hopefully for some Monk spotting, before I come back to Yangzhou to buy some pictures and teach a bit, and then off home on the railway. This part is still a little problematic as I have yet to receive my invitation for my visa. In fact I have received them but only via email which isnt useful excepting for purposes of visual gratification. The clock is ticking, but theres still a fair few ticks left yet.

That'll have to do for now. Ive got to go and play football.

Posted 10:19 PM by Gobbler
Its all in the Blog

Firstly:

Revolution

I dont know quite how to put it or explain it, but it seemed last week as though my class of brats suddenly decided to behave. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I had not turned up the week before. Officially this was because I was ill, but it was only partly true. I just wasnt in the mood to spend one class with a hard core of kids more interested in rioting and girls (which seems to involve throwing things at them, poking them and stealing their books, or for a select two or three who have been turned, sitting next to them and chattering to them)than english, and three classes of much better students who only really want to play the fruit game or one of its many derivatives. So I phoned up and took sick leave. I had done the college class in the morning (in my defence) and just decided that on that day I had better things to do with my afternoon than play games with a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds, even if that only other thing was to hit my head against a wall for three hours. In the event i played football.

Perhaps not having turned up made an impression on them, or at least their teachers who in turn deeply impressed it on them, perhaps with a textbook or hardbacked journal, for when i came into the class last week and started up my latest quiz, this time pinched from Rubrick, they behaved like any normal class would do, and better than a couple of my other middle school classes sometimes do. It looked as though I had finally cracked that class, though we will find out tomorrow how they then choose to behave.

And it was just in time because, as it turned out, that was my last ever teaching class. I have four classes back to back in that afternoon of which that class is the first but I discovered to my irritation in the ten minute break between the first and second classes that i was supposed to be giving them exams after all, only no-one had bothered to tell me, (i asked by saying "oh, did you want me to give exams by the way? its too late now, dont you think?")which meant that for the next three classes i had to give exams which were as a result, needless to say, somewhat haphazardly and hastily formulated. Luckily the students didnt know that and they went fine.

I spent the rest of the week doing exams and they all went fine. I have taken to recording them so as to make the marking fairer; unfortunately i have now run out of tapes and will therefore take this afternoon to recording over old exams, thereby making the whole recording idea somewhat farcical but keeping the students on their toes.

And something else

There something else that i was going to say here and now but i cannot immediately recall what it was, so i will witter on about other things.

Six months is not long enough

Now that I have been in china for four months I have got to know some of my students fairly well, and many of them are very enthusiastic about learning english. For the better ones who live on my campus this has meant increasing numbers of English Corners, basically where you turn up and chat rubbish for an hour. A bit like meeting down the pub except with no beer. Though I dont get paid for them these times are excellent because they are more relaxed than classes and instead of having 50 in a class you have 5 or 10 which is far more conducive to speaking. Conversation is pleasant and it is possible to smile and chuckle and talk about whatever, good for students' real conversational english. So for one group of students there was two such meetings last week and one again tomorrow. Conversations gets to questions like "How many cities have you been to in China?" "Oh, not many at all. Let me see now. Shanghai, Xuzhou, Changzhou, Yangzhou, Nanjing, Suqian, Chengdu, Chongqing, Yichang. How about you?" "Nanjing. I would like to visit Shanghai." and questions such as "How many countries have you been to?" which give from Rubrick and I compared to them even more distanced answers. Plus these few students who come to the english corner will get no oral english at all next year, the final year before they qualify, because it isnt considered important enough in their studies to become English Teachers, which youve got to wonder at. And in a couple of weeks we'll be gone, off travelling around China and other parts of the world, and they'll go home for the summer and do nothing except study, and we'll never see any of them again. "Will you come back to China?" "Oh yes, Id certainly like to." "When will you come back? Next Year?" "Erm. Ten years, maybe."

Thanks for all the talkbacks everyone. I will respond to them sooner or later, but it is not such an easy process as it once was. because i cant access my blogspot, i have to open up the comments website itself and access each message individually. this takes time and often makes me lose connection, and then to reply I need to copy it to word (which often breaks connection) and then repeat the process for each comment. all this takes a lot of time because my connection is so slow. Just making excuses now of course but there you have it.

On a personal note i finished over the weekend the two books 'New Leviathan' which I have been reading for two years at something of a slow rate, and 'Second Sex' which means I now know everything about said Second Sex. I feel that the combination of these two facts means that i am indeed, as Steve would say, very very clever.